NETTLERIDGE, TEXAS. Nettleridge is three miles northwest of Timpson in northwestern Shelby County. This predominantly black community originated in the latter part of the 1800s and was primarily a church and school community. The school in the area was first officially called Nettle Ridge and was operated as one of two schools of the Wedgeworth district. But in the community it was apparently often called the Jonah Roberts school in honor of a local prosperous black farmer and landowner. In 1899 the school served thirty-six children and in 1938, forty-two. By 1955 the school, along with other common-school districts in that part of the county, had been absorbed by the Timpson school district. Another important center of community activity was the Mount Zion Baptist Church, which was still in operation in 1984.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Charles E. Tatum, Shelby County: In the East Texas Hills (Austin: Eakin, 1984).

Cecil Harper, Jr.